Look at the cover of The Beach Boys’ seminal album, Pet Sounds: vibrant colors, playful interaction with animals, and a smile from Brian Wilson. Now examine the artwork of Surf’s Up, the group’s studio output five years later. It displays a James Earle Fraser sculpture (“End of the Trail”) depicting an anguished Native American that is barely recognizable due to an overpowering usage of washed-out and dreary oil paint colors. Even to those unacquainted with their work, it’s clear The Beach Boys experienced some career-defining shift during that five-year span. “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” sounds like a suppressed memory when compared to the disheartening questions asked during “’Til I Die.”
Real Estate find themselves at an oddly coincidental moment. Five years removed from their first LP, Real Estate, the New Jersey outfit has changed markedly. Members have been added and removed, lead guitarist Martin Courtney is expecting a child, they’ve traversed nearly every state through multiple tours, and “Beach Comber” was featured in a How I Met Your Mother episode. While never overly successful financially, Real Estate has absolutely cemented a reputation as musicians rebranding surf-rock for the millennial age.
It’s incredibly strange, then, to witness Courtney at his most vulnerable. Atlas highlights the group’s most quality instrumental work to date: Matt Mondanile’s ever-present noodling heightens Alex Bleeker’s playful bass lines alongside Courtney’s spacious guitar patterns. The album’s lyrical themes, however, stand at a stark contrast to each track’s overtly cheerful textures. It’s almost as if the same core artists who made such an excellent debut suddenly became self-aware, experiencing the same realization America’s surfboard-toting youngsters faced half of a century ago.
Atlas drips with irony to the point that you begin to wonder how this project didn’t collapse due to emotional instability. Beginning with Courtney’s signature arpeggiated twang and Mondanile’s winding guitar narrative, “Had to Hear” initially sounds much like an outtake from their second album, Days. Something much more troubling is manifested in Courtney’s words, however. “I’m out again on my own/A reflection in the chrome,” he states melancholically.
Subsequent tracks echo these indefinable sensations felt when judging one’s existence: “Crime” explores the moral assessment of another’s life after passing, “How Might I Live” questions the possibility of everlasting love, and “Navigator” bluntly declares “Where did the time go?” Atlas functions as a highly personal narration of Courtney’s fears but also as a reference point by which the group’s listeners can share these intense moments of intimacy.
There’s a moment during Breaking Bad when Walter White pensively stares at a dilapidated oil painting displayed on a hotel wall illustrating a man boating out into the sunset. Colors have weakened to match the drab wallpaper that covers the hotel room where Walt sits. He’s seen the artwork once before and begins to wonder its origin: how many exact copies exist elsewhere? Atlas is this feeling. The thought that one’s existence would forever offer wonderment has now lost its luminous sheen and now remains a worn photograph in life’s scrapbook.
Atlas